Secret Santa

by Janelle Denison

  “At least Melvin gave us a variety,” Tatiana said.“Definitely. Last night barbecue, blues and rousing fun. Tonight seafood, saxophone and sultry romance.” Although it had limited the number of tables the restaurant could accommodate, each table was practically an island unto itself with the placement of potted palms, ferns and privacy screens. The decor and the music created a nostalgic Casablanca-esque mood.

  Cole put down his fork. Sweet mango married with a hint of red pepper and delicate sea bass melted against his tongue. Interesting without being fussy.

  “Good choice,” he remarked to Tatiana, offering his opinion on her entrée. He’d eaten countless meals. He loved sharing good food. Of course, the downside to reviewing restaurants was that he’d likewise shared some mediocre to outright lousy food or service or, worst-case scenario, a combination thereof.

  Good food and the enjoyment of good food held an inherent sensuality, but tonight, with Tatiana, it took on a new level of intimacy. What was it about this woman that sparked such an awareness in him?

  “Want to try mine?” he asked.

  “Just a bite.”

  Normally he’d place a bit of the cedar-plank-smoked trout on a butter plate and pass it to her. Instead something drove him to offer her the taste on the tip of his fork. She had the most exquisite mouth. Not too full and pouty and not too thin-lipped and small, but the perfect blend of the two, with a slightly full lower lip. Her mouth sent his mind wandering into the dangerous territory of long, hot, lingering kisses and the even more dangerous terrain of Madame Snark plying her gorgeous mouth over his chest, down his belly, trailing tendrils of her red hair against his skin as she sucked and kissed her way down to his waiting—No. He did not need to go there in his mind in the middle of a working dinner. Sitting across from her and fantasizing his way to a hard-on wasn’t the brightest idea.

  She hesitated for just a second and then leaned forward and wrapped her lips around the tines. She held the sample in her mouth for a moment, her eyelids lowered to half-mast, as if she was totally focused on assimilating the flavors, the texture. Then she began to chew slowly. Lust gripped him, and with each slow, deliberate chew, it wound a little tighter inside him. Finally, thank goodness, she swallowed.

  “I wasn’t sure if the fennel would work with the trout or if it would overpower it, but it works nicely,” Tatiana said.

  “Uh-huh.” He’d nearly had a moment watching her chew a piece of fish.

  Briefly awareness shimmered in her eyes and then vanished. “What’s your favorite place you’ve traveled in the last year?” she asked. Was that a hint of desperation in her husky tone?

  He decided to take advantage of the change in subject. “No doubt about it. It’s Corfu, with its sun-drenched days and fresh, simple fare. There’s a taverna that sits at the edge of the white-pebbled bay, and they serve prawn saganaki—fresh prawns in garlic, olive oil, tomatoes, feta and cream.”

  “Stop. You’re making my mouth water!”

  He grinned. “It’s incredible. I stayed in a whitewashed villa set in the middle of olive trees. My bedroom overlooked the Ionian Sea, and during the day the sun slanted in onto the bed. I could lie there and watch the occasional cloud sift through all of that blue sky. They hung the sheets to dry in the sun. I was thirty years old before I’d ever experienced sun-dried sheets.”

  She laughed, a softer, gentler sound that caught him off guard. “There’s nothing else quite like it, is there? Grandma Rumasky and my mother both hang their sheets outside to dry. It’s one of my favorite things about going home.” She sipped from her wineglass and regarded him over the rim. “You paint an alluring picture of Corfu. It makes me want to go there. And, of course, I’d have to eat at your taverna and room at the villa with the sun-dried linens.” Her spontaneous smile stole his breath.

  “You’d like it.” Oddly enough, after spending three evenings with her, he thought he had a fair enough idea of what she would and wouldn’t like. The thought flashed through not just his mind but his entire being that he wanted to be there with her. He’d like to stretch out naked on the simple cotton coverlet of that bed warmed by the afternoon sun and make slow, leisurely love to her until they were both sated and drowsy from good food and even better sex.

  “It sounds great.”

  He started and then realized she was talking about Corfu, not his fantasy. He had a gut feeling it would be great between them. “What about you? Your favorite place?”

  “Hands down, Prague. Have you ever been there?”

  He shook his head and she continued. “There’s an old-world elegance to it that seems to have been lost in some of the other more well-known European cities. The River Vltava flows through the city. The stone Charles Bridge is lined by Baroque statues and it’s possibly one of the most romantic spots on earth when you take a walk at dusk with the city’s spires as a backdrop. Not only is it beautiful but it probably also appeals to me because it’s not so very far from my roots. My great-grandparents left Russia in 1916, before the Bolsheviks took power.”

  Tatiana had intrigued him before. Now he was outright fascinated. “How did they leave?”

  “How much Russian history do you know?”

  “Very little.”

  “Bottom line, there were lots and lots of have-nots. The majority of the country were peasants. My great-grandfather was a printer.”

  “Ah. A family history of publishing,” Cole said.

  “I never thought of it that way.” She picked back up with her story. “Dyda, as we called him, was smart and had access to books. He’d heard the Socialists and he knew what was coming. It had the makings of the French revolution when the blood of the aristocracy flowed like water through the streets of Paris. If you were a peasant, socialism was a step up. If you were an aristocrat, it was a death sentence. And for anyone in between, like him and his family, well, their fate could hinge on the whim of whomever was standing armed in front of them. He and my great-grandmother secretly made plans. One night they left. They and their five children packed one bag each—I think it was more along the lines of a sack, actually—and they walked away from everything else. They bribed their way out of the country. They arrived in Yurgash, which had the largest population of Russian immigrants, with twenty dollars in their pockets.”

  “Twenty dollars and five kids. What’d they do?”

  “They worked hard—it’s the Rumasky way. My dydushka delivered newspapers. My babushka baked. And the children shined shoes, picked up sticks, whatever they could do to earn a nickel. Within ten years, Dyda had his own printing operation again.”

  “That’s an amazing story.” He’d enjoyed it all the more because she’d forgotten to be on guard with him. It was like sitting in on a session of Tatiana Unplugged.

  “I’ve always thought so. I used to love to hear the stories about their journey to their new country. I’d sit in the kitchen while Grandma Rumasky and Babi Tatiana baked koliadki and baba romovaya and they’d tell about the old country. Dyda actually caught a glimpse of Rasputin, just in passing once. Pretty amazing. He was an everyday man who brushed shoulders with a figure pivotal in world history. Sort of a Forrest Gump moment.”

  She stopped and looked a bit self-conscious. “Sorry. I got carried away.”

  “Are you kidding? It’s incredibly interesting. I could sit and listen all night. Your family history is like a rich, wholesome broth. My family’s cornered the market on dysfunctional, but there’s no interesting history behind it like that. Not that I know of, anyway.” There’d been no family history passed down, just money and the apparent inability to stick with a life mate. He laughed. “Let me take a wild guess. I bet no one in your family’s ever gotten a divorce.”

  She shook her head. “You’d lose that bet. Cousin Katrina’s husband Barney worked the night shift. She decided to surprise him one day at home by coming in early. Except she was the one surprised when she walked in and found Barney decked out in her underwear. Apparently Barney looked be
tter in her merry widow than she did, so she dumped him.” She winked. “Cross-dressing is not that well-received in Yurgash.”

  Cole laughed aloud at her droll delivery.

  Her green eyes glittered with wicked merriment and she shoved a red curl behind one ear. “And Grandma Rumasky’s husbands keep dying on her, but that falls under good old-fashioned ‘till death do we part,’ not divorce.”

  “Is her tongue as sharp as yours? Maybe that’s the problem.”

  “Very funny.” She adopted a sanctimonious expression. “All of the women in my family are charming and sweet.”

  Cole snorted. “You do an excellent job of hiding it.”

  “Careful. All that flattery might go to my head,” she responded.

  Cole realized he was having one of the best times he’d had in…well, he couldn’t quite remember when. Conversation with Tatiana was unpredictable and kept him slightly off-kilter. And an undercurrent hummed between them, as if she was as aware of him as he was of her. They were a dessert and after-dinner drink away from being through, and he wasn’t ready for the evening to end.

  As if he’d picked up a mental cue, their waiter appeared and cleared their dinner plates. “Shall I bring over the dessert menu?”

  “Give us a few minutes,” Cole said, preempting Tatiana. The waiter nodded and faded away, dirty plates in hand.

  Tatiana arched an inquiring eyebrow.

  “We should dance first,” Cole said.

  Surprise widened her green eyes. “Why?”

  “Because it’s part of the total experience, the atmosphere.” A sax-and-string quartet played in one corner. A small parquet floor accommodated couples. In his book, the restaurant got top marks.

  “I suppose.” She didn’t look particularly convinced.

  The music enhanced the dining experience. Some establishments screwed it up by playing too loud for conversation. Some chose the wrong music and it clashed with the ambience. This was right on the money.

  “So shall we?” Two days ago, her reluctance would’ve delighted him.

  He stood, unsure for the moment whether she’d leave him standing there alone.

  “I promise not to bite,” he said.

  “I’m not sure whether I’m disappointed or relieved.”

  He drew her into his arms and a jolt of sexual awareness hit him. Who would’ve suspected she’d feel so soft, so right? That her curves would fit his angles so completely, as if she’d been custom-made for him?

  Her hand was warm in his and he pulled her closer. Her scent drifted around him. In her heels, her head grazed the line of his jaw, bringing her temple tantalizingly close to his lips. They turned at the edge of the dance floor and her hip shifted against his for a brief incendiary moment. Tatiana filled his senses.

  He bent his head, bringing his mouth to the tempting curve of her ear. Her hair teased against his cheek and his nose. “You’re a good dancer,” he murmured into her ear, her translucent skin just a fraction of an inch away from his lips. He gave way to an instinct as natural as breathing and nuzzled the tender lobe.

  She tilted her head, and for a moment it struck him as an entreaty rather than a rejection, but then she turned, moving her ear and neck out of range but bringing her lips achingly closer to his, her cheek brushing against his jaw.

  “Don’t.” Her breath feathered over his skin and desire flowed through his veins.

  He’d never in his life been at a loss for a glib response. But right now, the comeback king couldn’t think of a damn thing to say. He was too mesmerized by her.

  With a startling clarity, he suddenly realized exactly what he wanted for Christmas.

  He inhaled her scent one more time and smiled.

  Now all he had to do was convince her.

  6

  THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON, Tatiana finished editing her notes and saved the file. She rubbed at her temple. She didn’t have a headache, but by all rights she should.

  No doubt about it. This had morphed into the worst holiday season in her personal history. She’d done the unthinkable. The unconscionable. She’d had a brain lapse and slipped into some silly infatuation with—dear God, just shoot her now—Cole Mitchell.She wasn’t even sure how or when it had happened. All she knew was one second he was talking about Corfu and looking at her with those slumberous blue eyes and all of a sudden, she wanted to swim naked with him in the Ionian Sea and then share those sun-laundered sheets.

  Or maybe it had started when Parker Longrehn had slimed by their table? What the heck, it could’ve even been the very first time she met him and felt the impact of his silver-blue eyes and his smile tingling through her all the way from the top of her head to her toes, when she’d been happy to latch on to his dad landing him his job so she didn’t tumble head over heels and land at his feet.

  She thought about the brief fling she’d had in Prague with a philosophy student she’d met at a small café. They’d both considered it an intense cultural exchange. It would be different with Cole, who wasn’t part of the culture but would be there to savor and share it from a perspective similar to her own.

  But the true moment of her wits’ capitulation had been that dance. Had anything ever been more perfectly romantic? She must’ve lost her mind, because it now topped her most-romantic chart, bumping her adventure in Prague down to numero two.

  Her entire body had felt more alive, more perfectly attuned to the world with his hand at her waist, with the play of his muscles beneath her left hand, the tease of his warm breath against her skin, that brief brush of his mouth against her ear that had set her on fire. She’d longed for him to keep going. Thank goodness she’d rallied her remaining sense before she’d done something totally stupid like kiss him on the dance floor.

  She just needed to keep her distance. Get through the holidays, wrap up this slate of Web assignments. Then he’d go his merry way, she’d go hers and things would be back to normal. Holiday depression was quite common this time of year, and Tatiana was sure she’d simply developed some weird fixated form of the malaise. At least that explanation sat better with her than having developed a terrible case of lust for Tall, Dark and—at this juncture—Dangerous to her peace of mind.

  “Ready?” Speak of the devil…Cole poked his dark head around her door.

  They were doing an early seating tonight and they’d both had late work, so they were cabbing it together to the restaurant. She shook her head. What was the point in trying to deny the way her breath caught in her throat or the way her heart raced at the sound of his voice?

  “I’m almost ready,” she said. “I just need to close this program and get my things.”

  An hour and a half later Tatiana was proud of herself. So what that she had some ridiculous infatuation with Cole? Maybe she’d been terribly aware of his body heat in the cab next to hers, but she’d handled it. And dinner tonight was a far cry from last night’s romantic ambience, with its low lighting and sultry notes of the saxophone.

  She glanced around. Café Tatu was bright and noisy with the feel and look of a Japanese high-tech sushi bar. Conversation was limited, and the longer they sat there with limited contact, the more in control Tatiana felt. She finished the last of the restaurant’s signature drink, a sake martini. In an effort not to gain too much weight, she never ate all the food on her plate—and she noticed Cole had the same approach—or drank all the wine in her glass. Tonight, however, she polished off her drink. So was it considered a sakini or a marsake?

  Heck if she knew, but it was tasty, and she was feeling fully in control of herself. Downright jubilant, in fact. She was no longer suffering from some delusional state of infatuation over Cole Mitchell brought on by holiday depression. True enough, she might feel a touch of lust blooming low in her belly over the way the bright light brought out a hint of brown in his dark hair, but that really didn’t mean anything. Half the women in the room had shot inquiring looks his way, some bolder than others. Grudgingly Tatiana had to give him credit. This was b
usiness, not pleasure, and he could’ve easily collected half a dozen phone numbers, but he had been seemingly oblivious to the looks.

  They stepped out of the warm, overly bright restaurant on the trendy Upper East Side into the bracing, cold night. It had begun to snow when they’d first entered the restaurant and it continued to fall steadily now.

  “Amazing, isn’t it?” Cole said with a grin, snowflakes catching in his dark lashes.

  “What?”

  “It’s as if the city gets a new coat of paint. All the dirty snow is hidden by the new stuff and for a while, everything is fresh again.”

  At the corner stood one of the numerous horse-drawn carriages found around Central Park’s periphery. The horse, a dappled gray, snorted, and its breath rose like a smoke signal among the falling snow.

  “Are you in a big hurry to get home?” Cole asked.

  The quiet of her co-op’s eight-hundred square feet, complete with tabletop tree and her stocking hung by the microwave in the kitchen—hey, as close to a fireplace as she was likely to come—seemed more bleak than appealing after Café Tatu’s noise and bright lights.

  “No. I’m not particularly in a hurry. Why?”

  He nodded toward the carriage. “How about a ride through Central Park?”

  “Why? This isn’t like dancing last night. It’s not part of the dining experience.”

  “Maybe because it’s there and we’re here and Central Park at Christmastime with the snow is beautiful.” He peered closer at her. “You have taken a carriage ride through Central Park before, haven’t you?”

  Tatiana crossed her arms over her chest. “You don’t need to make it sound as if I’ve committed a sin.”

  “But you have.” Cole grinned at her and she wanted to grin back like an idiot. “It’s a cardinal sin of omission, but I can help you with that right now.” He took her elbow and steered her toward the horse and buggy.

  “With you?”

  “That was the general intent.” His smile, with a slight edge of sarcasm, didn’t waver, but Tatiana thought she saw a flash of hurt in his eyes. “I don’t see anyone else forming a line.”